INQUIRY, THE SCIENTIFIC TOOL FOR ALL INSTRUCTIONAL METHODOLOGIES

The Inquiry based learning, in the class of active learning is receiving lot of attention these days to an extent that, it is a major theme in national science education reforms: “Science education for All in America”. Hence an attempt is made in this study to measure the effectiveness of inquiry-based learning in the field of engineering specially applied to Microprocessors and Microcontrollers course. Jubin simulator was used as an ICT tool for implementation. This paper discusses the process by which the inquiry questions are designed. These questions along with the carefully defined procedure helped the students to do self-discovery of the concept called stack, which is associated with all programming. Results showed that inquiry is positively linked with outcomes when it integrates teacher guidance, and negatively when the inquiry is not designed effectively. It also shows that optimal learning is achieved when technology is blended with systematically designed inquiry learning instructional methodology.